India’s military might
was on view during its Republic Day parade on January 26. Much of the focus of
its armed forces is on China even though they are more regularly engaged in
dealing with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir. China looms large in the minds of India’s
planners – owing to its large military budget, its modernisation plans and the
aggressive posturing in the South China Sea – but there is not enough public
discussion as to what a future India-China war might look like.
This gap has been impressively addressed in a
paper by Iskander Rehman for the Naval War College Review titled ‘A Himalayan
Challenge: India’s Conventional Deterrent and the Role of Special Operations
Forces along the Sino-Indian Border’. Rehman, senior fellow at Pell Center for
International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University, draws on
extensive source material and interviews with figures in Indian intelligence,
military and special forces to capture how Indian and Chinese strategists think
about a border war, the way they are organising their resources and the
constraints they face. The paper essentially tries to assess if “India’s
operational concepts are sufficiently tailored to…the evolving Chinese
challenge”.
To begin with, Rehman outlines four factors that
will shape India-China conflict. First, the territorial defence postures of
both countries. India maintains its large body of troops relatively close to
the border while China stations a limited number in its interior in Tibet. Second
is the climate and the difficult terrain. “Areas along the Indian side are not
amenable to mechanised warfare, except certain parts of Ladakh and Sikkim.” The
high elevation of Tibet gives China some “commanding advantages” for
surveillance, artillery operations and acclimatisation of troops to high
altitudes. High altitude and extreme cold affect “almost every element of
military equipment”; they complicate air campaigns and battle plans. Third, is
the infrastructure disparity between the two sides. The People’s Liberation
Army has rapid access to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) thanks to the terrain
and highways and high-speed railway networks it has built whereas Indian troops
“often have to trek several hours, if not days, to attain certain areas.”
Fourth, there are very different command structures on both sides – India has
several regional army and air force commands, China has one unified western
theatre command.
Planners on both sides believe that the next
India-China conflict will be “limited in scope and short in duration, rather
than a protracted, large-scale, force-on-force campaign”, because of the
nuclear overhang and the prospect of a third party intervention if it prolongs.
This has a bearing on the kind of war they prepare for. Chinese writings since
the 1990s have emphasised “transtheater mobility”, rapid massing of strength,
“gaining initiative from striking first” and “fighting a quick battle to force
a quick solution”.
In the event of a conflict with India,
conventional forces will be rushed in from the interior and these will be
accompanied by air, electronic and cyber operations. The PLA’s air force
(PLAAF) and artillery will conduct “standoff strikes” to disrupt and delay the
arrival of Indian forces coming from the lowlands.” PLA’s Special Operations
Forces (SOFs) will be deployed to attack vital targets “to create favourable
conditions for main force units.” Rehman writes that India has been following
“with a certain degree of trepidation”, the rapid development of China’s airborne
assault capabilities via the PLAAF’s 15th Airborne Corps, numbering over 35,000
troops and headquartered at Xiaogan, from where it is expected “to reach any
part of China within ten hours.”
Responding to this, India is building on its
advantage in conventional troops numbers augmenting its force structure with
new battalions of scouts, adding air, missile and surveillance assets, raising
a new Mountain Strike Corps and improving its road and rail infrastructure in
the border regions. Beyond these material indicators Rehman argues that the
most significant change “has occurred in the intellectual domain as Indian
defence planners have adopted much more vigorous, tactically offensive approach
to territorial defence.” Raising a Strike Corps was a way of moving away from
deterrence by denial to deterrence by punishment; to a form of “offensive
defence”, a “cross-border riposte strategy”. As an army colonel told Rehman
“once the Chinese seize a position, it may be very difficult to dislodge them.
Rather than expend much blood and treasure attempting to storm impregnable
positions, we should pursue a strategy of horizontal escalation and capture
territory elsewhere.” In line with this, Ladakh and northern Sikkim are good
locations for a mechanised riposte where India’s forces would “sweep down
from…mountain plains to conduct pincer movements behind Chinese formations,
with the hope of breaking troop concentration.” India’s air and missile power
would aid these mechanised incursions into Tibet, as part of a wider theatre
strategy.
Rehman argues, however, that notwithstanding this
India’s approach to conventional deterrence has certain limitations. “While
Indian planners have moved toward adopting a more-offensive form of area
denial, they continue to rely, for the most part, on conventional forces that
could be overcome or circumvented in the event of a fast-moving, localised, and
limited border confrontation launched from higher elevations.” This leads to
several problems. India is reliant on dispersed, poorly equipped paramilitary
forces like the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) as “its first line of defence
in many of the forward areas most vulnerable to Chinese aggression.” The nature
of the topography is such that conventional troops, which are substantially stationed
in lower altitudes, are “relatively static” – moving them from lowlands is
challenging, and while they wind up mountain roads and valleys during conflict
they are vulnerable to artillery, missile or air strikes.
These weaknesses can be addressed, in Rehman’s
view, by a greater complementarity between conventional forces and Special
Operations Forces that can “play a critical role behind enemy lines, conducting
sabotage, reconnaissance, and direct-action operations.” SOF’s can be used to
strike airbases, reconnaissance assets and disrupt build-up of PLA forces. SOFs
are also useful to counter “gray zone aggression” described by Michael Mazarr
as “sequences of gradual steps to secure strategic leverage”, which would
include Pakistan’s covert action and China’s use of infrastructural development
to cement territorial claims. In view of their utility, Rehman’s surveys in
some detail India’s SOFs, their composition, mandates, operational challenges
and deficiencies, which will no doubt be pored over by planners (and
adversaries).
Some aspects of Rehman’s diagnosis need immediate
attention though. Road and rail projects in border areas continue to be
delayed. “As of May 2016, only twenty-one of sixty-one border road projects
designated strategic had been completed.” Twenty eight strategic railway lines
were sanctioned in 2010, “six years later none have been finalized.” Chronic
shortfalls in essential equipment continue, including parachutes, night vision
devices, high-altitude clothing and even aluminium, belt-attachable water
bottles. SOFs have expanded too rapidly “in size and in ad hoc manner, without
the benefit of careful, deliberate planning” – and in numerous cases battalions
have had to operate with inferior equipment sourced from infantry. There is not
enough training capacity to cope with expanded forces. Attrition levels are
high; most special forces units have an officer shortfall of 25-30%.
“Perhaps the greatest set of challenges lies in
the organizational domain”, writes Rehman. Like other analysts, he calls for
restructuring around a Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to harmonise the
large number of SOFs, address inter-service rivalry and bring about greater
strategic and doctrinal clarity.
Rehman’s paper is a remarkable piece of scholarship
that serves India’s defence establishment well. One cannot help but wonder
reading it why such an important work on India-China conflict happens to be the
product of a western institution rather than an Indian one. There are certainly
some outstanding international relations scholars in India, who happen to be
productive in spite of the prohibitive climate they operate in. It is worth
considering the conditions needed for producing valuable academic work. A paper
like Rehman’s has a gestation period (requiring institutional support for
scholars to pursue time-taking endeavours), it needs financial support, to
create congenial conditions for research and to travel for fieldwork and
interviews, and it needs access to establishment figures. Indian scholars based
in India can rarely count on these; they are more likely to be underpaid and
undervalued by the establishment.
Most importantly, a paper like this needs a
strategic and intellectual ecosystem that values critical voices and contrarian
thinking. Politicians must know that such rigorous scrutiny serves the public
good – and that fine academic work is a product of the habits of thought that
are nurtured in institutions, principally universities. If universities are
instead turned into receptacles of conformity then India will not have the
expertise that great powers need. It will also not establish institutions that
will have the credibility and influence to define the debate abroad. Right now
a paper originating in a western institution is initiating a conversation on
India-China conflict. There is, by contrast, no piece of Indian work on
American democracy that shapes the debate in the US on the age of Trump.
The author tweets as @SushilAaron
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